CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cleveland Municipal Court is now using a scoring system to help judges decide more fairly whether a criminal suspect should be freed pending trial.

Before bail is set, each criminal defendant is evaluated under a "public safety assessment" developed by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, a nonprofit that addresses social, government and economic problems.

The court began using the foundation's risk-assessment method after concluding that defendants were not being adequately evaluated and, in many cases, were sitting in jail simply because they didn't have the money to post bail.

Under the old system, judges relied on incomplete information before setting bail, which meant their decisions were largely based on the nature of the crime and judgments based on limited details of a defendant's criminal history.

How does the assessment work?

The computerized assessment weighs information about defendants to determine the likelihood that they will return to court for trial or will commit a crime if released.

The municipal court has given probation officers the task of processing the public safety assessments. They take names from the list of suspects being held in jail and research their criminal histories using government records.

The information is plugged into a computer that uses a formula to calculate two scores. One rates the chances that a defendant will return to court if released. The other rates the chances that a defendant will commit a violent crime while free.

The equation that calculates the predictive behavior was established by researchers who analyzed nearly 750,000 criminal cases across the United States in which defendants had been released from jail pending trial.

The goal was to determine those factors that were most often present when somebody skipped a court date or committed a crime, especially a violent crime, while free on bail.

A multitude of risk factors were tested, and nine were selected as the "most predictive" of someone's behavior.

What are the factors?

1. Whether the current offense is violent

2. Whether the person had a pending charge at the time of the current offense

3. Whether the person has a prior misdemeanor conviction

4. Whether the person has a prior felony conviction

5. Whether the person has prior convictions for violent crimes

6. The person's age at the time of arrest

7. How many times the person failed to appear at a pretrial hearing the past two years

8. Whether the person failed to appear at a pretrial hearing more than two years ago.

9. Whether the person has previously been sentenced to jail or prison

Do the judges like the assessment?

Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Jimmy Jackson, who was appointed to the bench last year, said the assessment and the "probable cause" evidence provided by prosecutors during bail hearings help him to quickly make more informed decisions about bail. He said he is able to quickly size up defendants "so that we can minimize their time in court, yet at the same time provide them with an accurate, hopefully, bond amount that will reflect whether or not they are going to appear in court again."

Municipal Court Judge Marilyn Cassidy, on the bench since 2007, is still getting used to the assessment. One component that she likes, and that she never received before, is a record of a defendant's previous failures to appear in court.

"I think it's a beginning," she said.

What do defense lawyers and prosecutors say?

Cuyahoga County Public Defender Mark Stanton calls the Arnold Foundation public safety assessment "a good thing."

It can be helpful to defense attorneys trying to secure a lower bond for their clients, he said.

Stanton said his only complaint is that currently only the judge sees the worksheets used to compile the risk scores. It would be helpful, he said, if defense attorneys had access to the same information.

"You want to make a good argument, not a bombastic one that ends up blowing up in your face," he said.

Kimberly Barnett-Mills, Cleveland's chief assistant prosecutor, wrote in an email to cleveland.com that the city supports the use of the Arnold Foundation assessment.

"This additional information should result in bond recommendations more closely tailored to the facts surrounding each case, and gives the Court more information to use in setting the bond," she wrote. "Because the use of this tool is new, it is premature to determine its effectiveness, and additional information is always preferable as the Court makes bond determinations."

What's next?

After 60 days, the court plans to identify additional risk-management strategies to improve the court's "overall pre-trial philosophy," according to Ronald Adrine, the court's administrative and presiding judge.

Those pre-trial services could include notifying defendants of upcoming court dates or subjecting released defendants to various forms of supervision, such as electronic monitoring, Adrine said.

Bail reform advocates such as Adrine are sold on the value of the Arnold Foundation formula, but he said it will take some time for his fellow judges to trust the assessments.

More than 30 jurisdictions around the country have adopted the Arnold Foundation assessment, including the states of New Jersey, Kentucky and Arizona. In Ohio, the Lucas County courts based in Toledo use the tool and have reported positive results.

The Arnold Foundation assessment is not without its critics, however. The bail industry, which makes money by providing bail for a fee, contends the Arnold Foundation assessment is unreliable. The industry points to incidents in New Jersey and California where defendants released from jail based on Arnold Foundation scores have gone on to commit violent crimes.

After one of those incidents, a New Jersey woman filed a federal lawsuit against New Jersey officials and the Arnold Foundation, claiming the man accused of killing her son was released from jail based on an Arnold Foundation recommendation.

Matt Alsdorf, vice president for criminal justice at the Arnold Foundation, said there are plenty of examples of people committing crimes after being released from jail under the old bail system. Alsdorf also contends that critics unfairly compare a risk-based system such as the one provided by the Arnold Foundation with an ideal situation that doesn't exist.

While expressing sympathy toward the family of the slain New Jersey man, Alsdorf said he questions the motivation behind the lawsuit, which according to the New York Times and huntingtonpost.org is being supported by a company that provides bail support to immigrants.

"It is really exploiting the grief of a family for financial ends," Alsdorf said.